The contribution of mining sector to sustainable development in Saudi Arabia

The mining sector development is among the priorities of the Saudi Vision 2030. There is currently a lot of interest in the role of the mining sector in Saudi Arabia. This research contributes to this debate by empirically assessing the effects of mining on sustainable development in Saudi Arabia during the period 1980-2018. Unlike many previous studies, the three sustainable development dimensions, namely economic, social, and environmental, are jointly considered. The cointegration analysis, based on the ARDL, GregoryeHansen, and combined cointegration tests, confirms the existence of long-run relationships between mining and all sustainable development dimensions. Furthermore, the findings lend substantial evidence on the importance of the mining sector in enhancing economic and social sustainability in the shortand long-run. There is, however, no evidence of the existence of adverse environmental effects of mining. The long-run effects of mining are robust to a battery of robustness and stability tests. Suitable policy recommendations are subsequently reported.